VDSL vs Fibre

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Hatch

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#271685 22-May-2020 12:44

Chorus have come knocking and have said we can upgrade to Fibre free of charge in our street as neighbours had Fibre installed last year.

We're on 2degrees VDSL and it is rock solid, aside from the change to CGNAT I don't have any problems or find the speed/bandwidth lacking.

However if there is a any increase in latency or general performance with no downsides then I would be happy to change. We are using a Fritzbox 7560.

Based in South Auckland.

Cheers for any advice.

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#2489378 22-May-2020 12:47

Moving to Fibre will have a positive impact on your latency & performance will be more consistent (No DLM / wet weather issues).

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Linux

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#2489381 22-May-2020 12:48

This is no brainer and I have zero idea why you are asking to be honest!

Have you ever heard anyone say oooohhhh can't wait to get off this fibre connection onto the copper VDSL service?

Hatch

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#2489383 22-May-2020 12:57

Linux:
This is no brainer and I have zero idea why you are asking to be honest!

Have you ever heard anyone say oooohhhh can't wait to get off this fibre connection onto the copper VDSL service?

Have heard of people Anecdotally having a crappy time after moving to fibre. So the answer to your convoluted sarcasm would be yes; in a way. Now shoo away little one the adults are talking.

When I talked to the technician he said he couldn’t guarantee the performance would be better although he said it should be but I wouldn’t think anyone would guarantee anything these days.

Hatch

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#2489385 22-May-2020 12:58

Andib:
Moving to Fibre will have a positive impact on your latency & performance will be more consistent (No DLM / wet weather issues).

Thanks for that input, I wasn’t aware of any wet weather issues with VDSL.

linw

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#2489387 22-May-2020 12:59

I think you have your answer!!

hio77

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#2489393 22-May-2020 13:01

in general moving to fibre will always net a more positive result, if not just removing the fact that one day water Will get into a joint, or another neighbours pair will get repaired with and yours will get 'knocked' accidentally resulting in lesser speed or possibly a fault.

there are some cases where moving from VDSL to Fibre can net a slower speed, but i've seen it to be pretty rare. (eg you have 100/50 VDSL and move to 100/20 Fibre)

Latency is the big one, generally you will see a good 2-3ms drop not having to go through the chorus backhaul to handover points. Fibre tends to be alot more direct.

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xpd

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#2489397 22-May-2020 13:07

XPD / Gavin

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Starlith

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#2489403 22-May-2020 13:19

You can easily google copper vs fibre optic and fibre is the clear winner. Don't take this choice for granted.

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#2489404 22-May-2020 13:19

I've had both, and fibre is light-years ahead. 🙃

After waiting 5 years on a (slow and unreliable) VDSL connection, I signed up for UFB on the first day that it became available in our suburb.
After an (expected) wait of 4 weeks, installation was quick and painless and on schedule.

Here are time-of-day SamKnows stats for my 2degrees UFB connection for the last week :

(click to view)

Blue - Auckland (I'm in Wellington)
Green - Sydney
Yellow - San Francisco
Red - London

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nztim

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#2489405 22-May-2020 13:23

No brainer, just don't let them do a sloppy install (tacking the fibre cable along a fence) it will result in future faults

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sm1ff

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#2489446 22-May-2020 13:27

Difference is night and day!

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Hatch

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#2489453 22-May-2020 13:35

Thank you for most of the input. The decision is clear. @xpd has spoken, just kidding. Appreciate the responses. I attempted to do some research but I couldn't find definitive answers.

Now let's get on with other discussions, such as the National Party leadership takeover!

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#2489481 22-May-2020 14:25

Late to the party, but total absolute no brainer lol. Fibre uber alles.

I'm a geek, a gamer, a dad, a Quic user, and an IT Professional. I have a full rack home lab, size 15 feet, an epic beard and Asperger's. I'm a bit of a Cypherpunk, who believes information wants to be free and the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. If you use my Quic signup you can also use the code R570394EKGIZ8 for free setup. Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

cyril7

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#2489482 22-May-2020 14:29

hio77:

.....snip

Latency is the big one, generally you will see a good 2-3ms drop not having to go through the chorus backhaul to handover points. Fibre tends to be alot more direct.

Hi, surely greater than 2-3mS if you take into account any interleave on the line.

To the OP the answer is a no brainer, a lot less moving parts in fibre at many levels, ie signal processing, line transcievers, and physical connections, and the nature of optical connections means way more reliable and insenstive to interference (VDSL is heavily affected by other VDSL signals in the same cable bundle), and moisture and temp issues.

As a result of less complex signalling etc latency is close down to the physical constraints of transit, ie no added latency for signal processing, that said GPON does have dynamic TDM on the upload, so can have an impact, but that is a tenth of what copper solutions have.

As for folk who talk about nightmares when moving to fibre, I would suggest those folk were either given poor installations or had out of line expectations as to what was going to happen, all self inflicted and totally avoidable if you understand whats happening.

Final answer, just do it, I cannot not understand why you would stay on copper if fibre is available.

Cyril

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#2489484 22-May-2020 14:34

Hatch:
Linux:

This is no brainer and I have zero idea why you are asking to be honest!

Have you ever heard anyone say oooohhhh can't wait to get off this fibre connection onto the copper VDSL service?

Have heard of people Anecdotally having a crappy time after moving to fibre. So the answer to your convoluted sarcasm would be yes; in a way. Now shoo away little one the adults are talking.

When I talked to the technician he said he couldn’t guarantee the performance would be better although he said it should be but I wouldn’t think anyone would guarantee anything these days.

@Hatch Well you spoke to the worse technician in the world then!

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